Frozen in Place
by firedew
Summary: Everyone deals with loss in their own way. Years behind him and a decision made, John looks back.


**Author's Notes**: I am hereby issuing a warning for those of you who are like me, with a soft, squishy marshmallow center. This is NOT a happy-go-lucky fic. As much as I love and appreciate the fluffy stuff, this is another breed entirely. Read at your own risk. Bring tissues. And be especially careful around Lifehouse's "From Where You Are." The combo did terrible, terrible things to me. ;-)

My undying thanks to my hubby for humoring me and helping me put together the artwork. And when I say 'helping', I mean 'doing most of it'. I think he likes me. :)

Hope you enjoy!

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"**Frozen in Place"**

by: firedew

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_"You should have seen it, Teyla. You should have been there."_

How many times had he said that now, he wondered. Easily hundreds. Possibly thousands. So many times he could still hear them echoing in his ears; shades of the past, hollow and empty. A meaningless ending to so many one-sided conversations.

John leaned against the wall of the virtually empty room. Over the years, it had become his spot, the one place it felt like he could think. Rodney had even claimed once that he'd finally managed to wear a dent the shape of the human form into the unyielding metal. It sounded funny to him at the time, but the obstinate scientist hadn't meant it that way.

_"How long are you going to keep doing this, Sheppard?" _ he would ask.

John would simply look across the room, where the lustrous and deep brown of her eyes stared back him encased in sheer, stark blue, and McKay's shoulders would sag in defeat, his friend a hopeless and willing prisoner to a merciless and cruel conundrum.

How do you mourn someone who is not dead? How do you move on when they aren't really gone?

For months afterward, it felt like people were waiting on him. Waiting for him to yell, scream, go off half-cocked and do something stupid, but he never did. Maybe it would have made them feel better if he'd locked himself in the lab for a week, refusing to stop working for sleep or even food like Rodney had. It had finally taken a tough talk and enough sedative to bring down a miniature beast of burden to get him home. Or he could have done as Ronon had, choosing the gym as his self-imposed prison/sanctuary, fighting anyone unlucky enough to come along. And pretty soon, when that wasn't enough and all takers dried up, he turned his grief and rage on the equipment, pounding out his fury until his knuckles bled and his bones cracked.

But John simply went on, moving through the business of everyday life. He couldn't get angry, he couldn't retreat or lash out. He couldn't cry, not even on his own. After every mission, he visited her, telling her the stories she'd missed, the news of what was going on, and all he could do was look in her knowing eyes and tell himself he'd done the right thing. For the longest time, in his hardening heart, he couldn't feel anything.

He lifted his wrist and checked his watch, the ambient blue light catching his reflection in the clear surface of the glass. Time had changed him. The gray at his temples had spread, only consisting of the odd hair here and there when she last saw him. And the creases around his eyes had managed to etch themselves in a little deeper with the passage of years. Meanwhile, Teyla was exactly the same—calm, restful. Still. Forever still.

Even when the burden of guilt, despair and loss finally came crashing in on him, crushing the frigid numbness of his existence, she remained as she was, that understanding look in her eyes agony to his broken heart that wanted—needed—more. A smile, a laugh. He would have gladly welcomed even a frown. Resentment for being the one to lead the mission that eventually took her, condemnation for fighting Kanaan, Halling, and the rest of her people who were helping her prepare for what was coming. Forgiveness for selfishly not letting her rest when she had finally made her peace with it. Something. Anything.

Huddled on the ground, knees to his chest, in the same spot where he was usually able to stand, his pain had come roaring back to life again that day, the day the last vital and vibrant piece of her left. The tears flowed one by one as he told her, his voice cracked and hoarse. He continually wiped them away, but it didn't help. They just kept on coming.

_"TJ's gone, Teyla. Kanaan took him." _ He gulped down his sorrow, trying to get through it. He knew she couldn't hear him. She never had, but he needed to tell her anyway. _"It's probably for the best. It was … getting too hard for him, seeing you here. He doesn't understand why you won't talk to him. Why he can't hug you. Why you can't come home and read him a story." _A low, unfettered sob sounded within his haven and he had been slow to recognize it was coming from him. _"He's better off with your people. They can take care of him, give him a life and a family._ _It's just until you get back, Teyla. Just until we can find a way to make you better. Just until then … "_

In the present, though he was now far removed from the raw heartache of that night, John saw the hazel eyes in his mirror image growing damp and dropped the watch back down to his waist. With a shuddered sigh, he noted Rodney was late. His bullheaded and outspoken protests ignored, John figured he was trying a more passive approach, hoping he would see sense and change his mind. He smirked to himself, picturing Rodney's face when it finally dawned on him that his plan to wait him out had backfired.

He slowly paced forward, stopping directly in front of her. What McKay didn't realize was that the more time John spent in here with her, where the silence breathed new life into his memories and the cold touch of the past brought clarity and freedom, the more he knew he was doing the right thing.

A year passed, then two, and three. He kept coming up here to see her whenever he could. It hadn't taken long for it to be common knowledge that if one couldn't find Col. Sheppard, he was probably in the stasis chamber underneath the northeast tower. Sometimes, he would get there and Ronon would be there already. Or Rodney. Or Jennifer. Even Woolsey came down on occasion, but they all usually cleared out pretty quickly when he arrived. When he was here, John had little interest in talking with anyone but her.

Sometimes his visits were delayed far longer than he would have liked. They were waging a war against the Wraith and as military commander of Atlantis, he was often far away on the front lines, leading the first assaults. And a few times, he was hampered much closer to home as a result. One time in particular, he nearly hadn't made it back. His jaw tightened, remembering the long weeks of recovery in the infirmary and the months of physical therapy that followed. When he was finally mobile again, he'd nearly driven his caretakers crazy disappearing into the night on crutches to come see her and it only grew worse when he graduated to the use of a cane. But he'd always returned.

He had a promise to keep.

While he'd been stuck on the sidelines, John used the opportunity to keep pushing those around him not to give up, making a real nuisance of himself, because he could see that most of them already had. A long time ago. As much as he might have wanted to, he couldn't blame them for moving on.

Life goes on. Isn't that what they always say? After all, Teyla's condition wasn't getting any worse. There was always more time. When the war was won, they could turn their focus back to exploration and maybe they'd find something to counteract the slow-moving poison that had ravaged her body one system after another until there was next to nothing left. He had to be patient, they told him, advice he generally took with a grain of salt considering that in his extensive history of being a patient, he had never actually _been _patient. But what they didn't know was that for John, his narrow brush with death had already set another clock in motion. Biding his time was a luxury he could no longer afford.

Three more years went by, bathed in battle and blood, before he was finally able to tell Teyla that the Wraith were gone. The humans of Pegasus were free and her son would never have to live through the horror of a culling, watching his loved ones disappear and die. It was what she had wanted, what she worked so hard to achieve. She'd always known Atlantis was the best hope for the galaxy's future and her friends hadn't let her down.

He didn't know what he expected, but he knew it should have been different. The shine of her eyes, the strength inside her velvet voice, the musical sound of her laugh and the sleek feel of her hand. They were all right in front of him, caged in a protective sleep where she would never know that the future of the galaxy had just changed for the better. Instead, there was a gaping hole in his chest where Teyla should have been, in that moment where they should have been celebrating together.

He missed her. So much.

But, life went on.

A short bleep from his earpiece pulled John back from days gone by. He gave it a light tap. "That better be you, McKay."

"Who else would it be?"

"You think you're the only person I ever talk to?"

"Only the most important," he replied.

John grinned. It was strange to think that this blustery, pompous man had somehow become his best friend, the only one he trusted to help him. "Are you coming or am I gonna have to come up there and drag you?"

There was a heavy pause. "I'm coming."

John nodded to no one in particular and after a long pause of his own, answered with earnest sincerity. "Thanks, McKay."

He reached out and gently touched the surface of Teyla's icy home, the glow behind her radiating over his skin. Running his hand carefully along beneath the shadows of her face, it was as cold as anyone would expect, but as impenetrable as the stasis field was, it was surprisingly soft and smooth under his fingers. That much, at least, suited her. It was exactly as he remembered.

_"I saw Torren today. He's getting big. Tall like Kanaan, but … he looks just like you,"_ he had said in a visit just a few months after the war ended. When the young boy smiled, John had been flung headlong to six years previous. A knife twisted in his gut thinking it had been that long since he'd last seen her smile. _"He's a good kid, Teyla. You should see him with a fishing pole. I swear, he caught every fish within fifty yards. There was nothing left for the rest of us. You'd … be really proud."_

He hated the leaden weight that formed in his throat.

_"Ronon's leaving. Lysa and Orekh are already on Sateda with the rest of the survivors. Resettling is gonna be a real pain in the ass considering what the Wraith did to the place, but if anybody can wrangle three hundred Satedans, it's him. Rodney's sticking around, though. At this point, I don't think they could pry him away from Atlantis. He'll probably wind up getting cremated with a computer in his hands and end up on a shelf in one of the labs, intimidating the underlings for all eternity."_ John had managed a semblance of a smile, imagining her response, but it was short-lived. _"I made him swear with his right hand on a ZPM to come visit you." _

Then, he'd touched the stasis field for the first time as one looking in from the outside, fervently wishing he could reach her. Eight hundred years had seemed like a moment compared to the relatively short years on the outside. For Teyla, it would seem like he'd never left. It was his sole consolation.

_"Teyla, I've been recalled to Earth,_" he confessed into the silence. _"I don't know for how long. Gen. O'Neill says its only temporary, but the IOA's been gunning for my job for a while now and some of the brass at the SGC are starting to listen. Now that the Wraith are yesterday's news, they want somebody else. Somebody a little quicker with the paperwork and less prone to insubordination."_

He leaned in, laying his forehead against the surface, not minding the chill. To this day, he still didn't know why he whispered, but at the time, it seemed right. No one would overhear him, no one would be able to hear the desperate longing that at some point became as much a part of him as his arm or leg.

_"I promised you, Teyla. I haven't forgotten. I told you I would be here the day you woke up again and I will. I'll do whatever it takes. _Whatever_ it takes. I will _never_ forget you." _

And he didn't. He spent over a month on Earth lobbying to hang onto his position. He called in favors and begged a few more, but it didn't look like it would be enough. Ultimately, he was pretty sure he owed his reinstatement to the Atlantis base to Jack O'Neill and Sam Carter going to bat for him. Within an hour of his first steps through the Gate, he was with Teyla again.

He hadn't left since.

He drew in a breath, the echoing sound of footfalls ringing in the corridor. John could practically hear the reluctance in McKay's heavy steps. He smiled, though he understood what he was asking of his friend and former teammate. He had no right to ask Rodney to help him, but he had no other choice.

When John had looked in the mirror last week, donning his uniform like he did every day before taking on the best job he'd ever had, he knew he couldn't wait any longer. He had old wounds that ached, his shoulder and leg only the worst of them. Waking up in the morning was becoming more of an ordeal than it used to be. He was still active, running four days a week, swimming and surfing whenever the opportunity presented itself. He still managed to keep in step with most of the new recruits that stepped off the boat. But he was getting older. It wouldn't be long before the John Sheppard that Teyla had known would be gone.

It had been ten years with no luck and he was out of time.

_"There is nothing more to be done, John,"_ she'd looked up at him from her bed, composed and diplomatic, but a silvery streak ran down her cheek which was thinned out and worn. She looked so tired after months of struggling against the poison running through her veins. She'd tried everything Keller and Beckett could come up with in the hopes of finding a cure to no avail. The most they'd been able to do was slow the spread or she would have been gone that much sooner. _"It is simply my time." _

He chewed furiously on his lower lip, determined to stay strong for her. _"Don't. Teyla, don't give up."_

Always way ahead of him, she'd already been through the seven stages of grief. She had been shocked and angry, and when the full extent of her condition sank in, she'd cried. John had never seen Teyla cry before. Really cry. But she did. Her tears spilled into the black cotton of his shirt, hot and deep, but instead of warmth, they brought with them the chilling sense that her future was being erased, that she was being wiped away from those to whom she meant so much one inch at a time. A little more with every passing day, with every drop that fell. What she felt, how scared she must have been, John knew he would never fully understand. All he knew in that moment was the pain of being one of those forced into going on without her.

If he had only known, then …

He might have wept with her.

But he was furious. Internally, John railed at the universe for taking her away from everyone who cared about her, for robbing TJ of his mother. All because of a thorn. A stupid thorn on a random planet with little else to speak of.

One. Damn. Thorn.

He didn't want her to accept death. He wanted her to stay as mad as he was, to keep fighting even though it was a lost cause.

Barely able to sit up or hold her son any longer, she couldn't function. She was in so much pain. He could see the damage eating away at her in every single muscle, every time she moved, but he couldn't let her go. The idea of watching her slip away was unbearable. Over protests from the Athosians, Woolsey and his friends, he pleaded with her to go into stasis, to believe that they would find a way. The doctors told him she was too far gone, that even if she were revived, she would likely die soon after. John didn't care. Faithfully at her bedside in her final days, he tried anyway.

He reasoned. He begged. He made the pledge he had stubbornly kept ever since.

She watched him with those captivating eyes, taking in every word. Those he would shout into the rafters to anyone who would listen for as long it took and those so dangerous he couldn't say at all, not even to himself.

Finally, with a weak hand and a serenity of spirit, she reached out and gently cupped the side of his face. Her thumb traveled along the contours of his cheek and he wanted so badly to close his eyes and savor her touch against his skin, but he didn't dare. Every second with her then was precious, not to be wasted. Too spent to lift herself, she kept to the plush cushion of her pillow. She tilted her head and extended her other hand, feebly inviting him in. In answer to her silent plea, he left his chair and slid into the empty space alongside her.

With painstaking delicacy, he maneuvered his arm beneath her head as the other ran neatly into the long curve her back and pulled her closer, so she could rest against him easily. In the sheltered cusp of his shoulder, she tipped her chin upward and John nestled his forehead to hers as they had so many times before. He listened to the labored whine in her every breath and the sudden knowledge that they would never be this way again hit him like a sledgehammer, marking that moment forever. All his useless ire abandoned him, leaving him feeling utterly lost and alone. A tremor shaking him to his core, he actually heard the very beat when the heart within him cracked.

_ "I can't … I can't lose you, Teyla." _

Beneath the weight of her eyelids trying to heed the comforting call of sleep, her eyes swam with the essence of life that had callously abandoned the rest of her being. Her fingers sluggishly dropped to rest on his chest, curling into the rumpled folds of his shirt. Her reply was little more than a whisper.

_ "I know, John. I know."_

He reached up and trailed his fingers through her hair to the rhythm of his bleeding heart. Then, for what counted as the first time—and likely the last—he leaned in. With the careful press of his full lips and a heated breath, he tried to share his strength and warmth with her in a futile hope it would keep her here for a few moments longer. If he willed it enough, she would stay. Her lips yielded to his intimate caress, then returned his gentle stroke with one of her own. His chest tightened underneath the tips of her fingers. Emotions colliding and threatening to choke him, John held her close. His lips parted over hers as he indulged in her taste, her sweet scent, branding them into his senses and into his memory, never wanting to forget.

Too soon and too tired to go on, her mouth drifted away from his and, knowing how frail she was, John let her go. The kiss, from beginning to end, probably lasted a few seconds all told, but John would live a thousand years before he would forget it and the peaceful way her hand rested over his heart when she fell asleep.

Teyla had already said her goodbyes, but a few hours later, with his assistance and the help of Dr. Keller, she willingly stepped inside the stasis chamber. He'd seen it in her eyes then, and he'd seen it every single day since as she stared back at him, a pale shadow of her former self—Teyla would not have survived the night. She went in knowing that she would never leave. And she did it for him.

Time heals all wounds. Another thing 'they' say. Well, John knew different. For him, it was a lie. Time had proven helpless against the chasm she had left behind. Time couldn't help Teyla and neither could he. Not this way, not separated from her by the harsh, immovable cycle of life and death.

Rodney finally entered the room, a stony frown already firmly set in place, his lips paper thin. He stopped in the doorway and watched John with her. His grim pallor softened for a moment. John wasn't the only one who still felt her absence, but he also knew Rodney couldn't just roll over and accept his decision any more than he had hers.

"Why? Can you just tell me why?"

John looked at his best friend and the sadness in his face. Rodney never was one to stand on ceremony. "Because … I can't … " _I can't breathe without her. I can't sleep without seeing her face __or hearing her voice calling out to me. So bright, full of life. Because I … _

His eyes darted away, unable to adequately articulate what he truly meant. "I can't leave her here all alone."

They both knew that so long as she was left undisturbed and as long as the city had power, Teyla could go on living for … maybe another ten thousand years. Who knew when they would find a cure that could save her in time? John had no way to know it would be within his lifetime, he only knew he'd made a promise. He couldn't let her wake up a hundred years from now or a thousand, with everyone she ever knew dead and gone. He would be there when she woke up as the man she knew, the one she had left behind.

Rodney shook his head, carrying one last protest, one last argument. John wouldn't have had it any other way. "Don't do this, Sheppard. She wouldn't want you to throw your life away."

John studied the vacant stasis pod next door to hers. "Just think of it as my retirement plan, Rodney."

"Funny." His hands tucked into his pockets, Dr. McKay swayed tensely back and forth on the balls of his feet. "How am I supposed to explain this to the rest of them?"

"I left some things in my office. A few letters, some notes for Lorne so he'll be able to deal with the red tape and the questions."

"What about Ronon? What am I supposed to tell him, huh?" Rodney pointed out resentfully.

John smiled to himself. Teyla had always been so much stronger than he was. He was never any good at saying goodbyes. "Just tell him tell him something good and say I said it. Oh … " he added, clapping him on the shoulder, "And he can have my stereo."

Rodney actually lost the stern expression for a second and let out an exasperated, lackluster chuckle. "You think that'll work?"

"No, not really," he said, the mirth falling away. "Just … tell him what happened, Rodney. Ronon … he'll understand."

A long moment passed between the two men. "You love her, don't you?"

John met his scrutiny without breathing a word. He didn't need to. After ten years, if Rodney hadn't figured out the truth by now, he never would.

But it seemed he had. He nodded and sighed in anguished surrender.

After a few seconds, John exhaled and motioned toward his intended destination. "You made the modifications?"

"All the new protocols and security codes are in place," he confirmed, running over the contingencies they'd previously discussed for his own benefit. Far more comfortable with cold, hard numbers than the emotionally messy reality in front of him, Rodney went on and on. Eventually, a quiet look from John led him to sum it up. "There's no way she can get revived accidentally and in the event she's released first, the city's automated systems will kick in immediately and revive you with only a 0.32 second delay. That's … the closest I could get it."

Rodney gazed intently at the floor.

"I guess this means you'll be together, then."

"I guess so," John muttered into the air. "Rodney …" He slowly extended his hand. "It's been an honor."

Rodney looked down at his hand and grasped it firmly. Then, John suddenly found himself in a quick, hard hug. Rodney clumsily squeezed his shoulder. Other than a surprised smile, he barely got a chance to react before he was released again.

Not really knowing what else there was to say, John turned back to Teyla, taking her in one last time. So beautiful. "Don't let them stop looking, McKay."

"I won't. I promise."

With a deep breath out, John stepped into the waiting stasis chamber and turned around. Rodney followed closely behind, his hand hovering over the control panel, waiting.

A simple nod and John indicated he was ready. Drawing it out any longer would only have made it more painful in the end.

"Come and see me sometime, Rodney."

A sad smile was the last thing John's hazel eyes saw as the blue mist of the field enveloped him and he simply … stopped. Maybe someday they would find a cure for her, maybe they wouldn't. In any case, he was finally at peace. He was frozen and bound to seeing through his promise, but more importantly, he was bound to her, their destinies linked forever.

They would wake up together or not at all.

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fin

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Necessary disclaimer: I do not own Stargate. I do this for fun, not profit.


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